Hiatus

Unfortunately, the blog will be on temporary hiatus for the next two weeks. My life is rapidly filling with shopping, work, decorating, baking, family, wrapping paper, projects, cleaning, and catchy songs, so I need a bit of time to take care of everything. Until next time, happy holidays everyone...



...so hug someone who likes a book, already.

Christmas explosion!!!

Three Musketeers and Changes

Summer exploded in my face a bit, but we finally chugged through The Three Musketeers. The time did, however, give me an opportunity to re-evaluate the state of the blog. While I enjoy the freedom of an open reading blog, more focus could enhance the quality and direction of the site. So, I am going to revert to the original purpose of the blog (minus the grading issues). Starting next week, the blog will focus on materials aimed at or useful to tweens, the age group between 8 and 13.

Most tweens have returned to school. While recommended reading will wait (probably until the first full week of September), I would like to conduct an experiment. The Internet provides a growing number of students with resources. A developing resource comes through online question and answer pages. Next week, we will ask a simple question: What is a qat? and judge AskColorado, Yahoo! Answers, Answers.com, and AskKids according to the following criteria:

1. Accuracy (+1)
2. Direction to further information (other sites, books, etc.) (+1 per resource)
3. Speed of response (+1 if given within 24 hours)

Points will be taken away for:

1. Inaccuracy (-1)
2. Joke, troll, or unrelated responses (-1 per response)
3. Direction to Wikipedia (-1)

My reasons for downgrading Wikipedia directions are threefold. Wikipedia is not an official source, so most school assignments will not accept it. Furthermore, anyone can change a Wikipedia page, for good or for "lolz," so accuracy is not guaranteed. Also, once Wikipedia revealed that tsunamis are caused by yo mama. I really should have taken a screenshot of that. Anyway, it killed my faith in Wikipedia, so I will not consider it an acceptable resource.

Anyway, onward!

I'm Off

I hope you enjoyed the documentaries and documentary books reviewed last week. However, I will not post anything further this week. This week, I am taking a vacation, so I will not be able to update the blog. However, the reviews will continue next week. Enjoy!

On the road again...

New Challenger!!!

Actually, it's a new plushie. His name is Jerome and he is a mosasaur. Not a crocodile. A mosasaur. I got his pattern from here. So go! Fill the world with extinct reptile toys!

Random Post

Okay, this is a random post. So far, I've mostly used my Raichu and Toothless plushies in my blog. However, to vary things a little, I've added this fellow. I bought him a few years ago at a Fourth of July Celebration at the park. I don't feel as comfortable using him in my pictures since I did not actually make him. Anyway, if you like the other plushies, I got the patterns for them at http://renegar-kitsune.deviantart.com/art/Raichu-Sewing-Tutorial-153382876 and http://katy-a.deviantart.com/art/How-to-Plush-your-Dragon-161986356. This concludes my random post.